It’s been an eventful summer thus far. Goldi and Clucky hatched out four beautiful black chicks in early June. I had tried to only set the lavender Orpington eggs, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to see. All the chicks thus far have resembled the mother rather than Finn, but I suspect (not knowing poultry color genetics well) black must hide under his mahogany speckled pattern to produce these babies. One of them does have some lavender down. They are named Coral, Ebony, Jet, and Onyx, but I confess to not being able to tell them apart. The moms keep them so well under cover, I can barely get a glimpse of all four at once--its just like watching wild birds. I think of them collectively as “The Blacks!”
Just a few days after they hatched out, I had to go out of town for a couple of nights. Last year I was able to leave the compound door open whenever I was gone and all was well, so aside from recharging the fence battery and making sure everyone had enough food and water I wasn’t too concerned. I came back to a disaster. Dan and Puppis were outside the electric fence and Ann and Colter were missing. Upon scouting around, I found plentiful raccoon scat inside the fence and also inside the coop right in the nestbox where these young birds still slept. I found two small piles of feathers matching the missing birds in the wooded area of the run. I found how the raccoon had gotten in--up a small sapling outside the run that now had a broken branch dangling inside. And then I found that the grounding wire had come off the fence charger (probably when I replaced the battery) leaving the fence stone cold. If I had tested the fence before I left, I would have caught it. A hard lesson.
Dan and Puppis went happily back into the run when I opened the fence for them, so my main concern was that the raccoon might still be inside the fence invisible up in the thick canopy in the wooded section. I checked carefully and made sure that I was out at dusk to catch him coming down. I never saw him, but was faced with a new problem. Dan and Puppis were frantically pacing the fence, thrusting themselves under Flicka (who raised them), peeping in their maturing voices, terrified. I caught Dan as he prepared to launch himself over the fence, and meanwhile Puppis burst through the (uncharged, since I was inside) fence mesh and into the thick weeds. I put Dan in the coop, and hunted for Puppis, but she was gone. She didn’t return in the morning, and a few days later, I ran across a pile of her feathers too. Dan continued to be frightened at dusk and it was a good week before he willingly entered the coop again at night.
That same night, I decided Goldi, Clucky, and the new chicks would be safer in the main coop than in the broody suite (with it’s unsecured next box lid). As soon as it got dark, I moved them in, locked down the coop, and made sure the fence was smoking. Lesson learned!
After he settled down, it became apparent that Dan was lonely. I’ve seen that until maturity and beyond, chickens hang out with their age groups. Without his siblings, Dan was really at loose ends. The older hens wouldn’t have him, so he tried to join the moms and new babies. They weren’t thrilled with him either, so he skulked around just beyond their reach. He idled on Craig’s List until I was thinking I would have to offer him for free and then he would certainly be dinner. Just a few days ago, I finally got an offer. Dan got to go be the rooster and hawk guardian for 11 pullets his age. He will be a king! And he got to keep his name too since the buyer’s son’s name is Daniel!
As this summer’s record heat ramped up, Flicka went right back to broodiness followed promptly by Zen. These two hens shared chicks successfully last year, so I didn’t hesitate to put them together, but with Dan lingering unsold and unloved I was getting concerned about the number of “mutt” chicks I was producing. I’m still not comfortable raising boys destined to go straight to someone’s table, so I redoubled my effort to find local pure-bred hatching eggs. I found some people who raise Buckeyes, but they were located in Dayton (quite a drive), and while Buckeyes are a nice breed, they don’t really “call” me. Last year I had thought I would concentrate on Orpingtons--I really love my broody hatchery buffs, but the lavenders, who are much closer to the standard are really suffering in the heat in their fluffy layers. And honestly, even when they’re comfortable, they do just sort of sit around.
So I bit the bullet, set up a Paypal account, and went hunting for hatching eggs online despite all the obvious perils (not to mention expense!) of shipping. I found an ad for true Araucanas and that was it. This breed is derived from a combination of two Chilean chicken races. In the US, they are ideally rumpless, ear-tufted, and lay blue eggs. They come in only a few standard colors, but I soon found that it’s so hard to get rumpless birds with tufts (neither trait breeds absolutely true, and the tufted trait is lethal when inherited in two doses), breeding for color tends to be secondary with beautiful, unpredictable results.
I was smitten with this breed because it seems to be the closest thing to the rumpless birds I worked with at Hiram. I’m not sure what breed those were--maybe just bantam Easter Eggers, but they were all colors of the chicken rainbow, bearded, muffed, rumpless of course, and laid colored eggs. Araucanas will suit me now because they will be individually identifiable from a distance (without bands), they are reputed to be friendly, fearless, and inquisitive, they have normal feathering so they won’t bake in the summer, a small pea comb that won’t freeze in the winter, and fertility issues apart from the lethal gene limiting the hatch rate. I still don’t want a large number of birds here, so if my broodies only hatch out a few at a time, that would be ideal.
So I placed my order and received 22 (!) eggs safely in the mail. I slipped them under Flicka and Zen and now we wait. They came without a guarantee of course. Shipping eggs is always a risk, the weather has been brutally hot, and there are the issues specific to Araucanas. I hope I get at least one though so the hens won’t have to go through another round.
This started out as a hunt only to find pure-bred eggs so I could more easily sell the chicks, but my wheels are really turning now as I count them, still unhatched. I have an extra A-frame coop that I haven’t used as yet. I have a vision of putting it on wheels and getting another string of fence and a charger. I could probably keep about 4 Araucanas in there (they’re much smaller than my current chickens--the roosters mature at a pound lighter than little Belle) and move them around the yard. I’ll keep my current mature chickens of course (“the Blacks” will be sold after they’re weaned--probably pretty readily since they carry lavender). They’re my pets, and what a terrible thing it would be to sell them off now just when their productivity is waning, but I’m thinking that any new ones I add will be Araucanas.
